Towards realistic simulations of QED cascades: non-ideal laser and electron seeding effects

Abstract

A number of analytical and numerical studies has been performed to investigate the onset and the development of QED cascades in the collision of two counterpropagating laser pulses as a function of the laser intensity. However, it has been recently demonstrated [M. Tamburini et al., Sci. Rep. 7, 5694 (2017)] that the onset of QED cascades is also strongly influenced by the structure of the laser pulses, such as the laser pulse waist radius. Here we investigate how QED cascades are affected by: (a) the laser pulse duration, (b) the presence of a relative delay for the peak of the laser pulses to reach the focus, (c) the existence of a mismatch between the laser focal axis of the two laser pulses. This is especially important as, in realistic laboratory conditions, fluctuations may arise in the temporal and point stability of the lasers.

arXiv comment10 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Physics of Plasmas

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• SFQEDtoolkit: a high-performance library for the accurate modeling of strong-field QED processes in PIC and Monte Carlo codes
• Locally monochromatic two-step nonlinear trident process in a plane wave
• Effects of colliding laser pulses polarization on $e^{-}{e}^{+}$ cascade development in extreme focusing
• Pair creation, backreaction, and resummation in strong fields
• Testing strong-field QED with the avalanche precursor
• QED Effects at Grazing Incidence on Solid-State-Targets